From the “looks like a win for skeptics” department. USGS publishes new information that quashes widespread media and activist claims that the flood in South Carolina was caused by climate change; nor was it a “1000 year event” as many have called it such as USA Today:
From the USGS: Flood Information website:
Dr. Robert Holmes, USGS National Flood Hazard Coordinator, takes some time to discuss and answer some hot issues related to the flooding in South Carolina.
Is this flooding in South Carolina truly a 1000-year flood?
While this certainly was a catastrophic flood with lots of damage and tragic loss of life, USGS provisional data and preliminary analysis show NO indication that a 1000-year flood discharge occurred at any USGS streamgages. However, based on that analysis, it does appear that the USGS streamgage on the Black River at Kingstree, SC and the one on theSmith Branch at Columbia, SC both measured peak floods in the neighborhood of a 500-year flood. Currently, there appear to be a few more streamgages experiencing a 25-year to 50-year flood, but the majority of USGS streamgages had flood peaks that were less than 10-year floods. USGS will have more accurate estimates of the flood probabilities out in the coming months, as the engineers and scientists in South Carolina take time to do more careful analysis of the statistics.
I heard that the river flow through downtown Columbia was 4 times the historic maximum; maybe that was close to the 1000-year flood?
The provisional peak flood flow that USGS measured for the Congaree River in Columbia was 185,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on Sunday, October 4, 2015. The maximum recorded in history was 364,000 cfs in 1908, which is almost double what was experienced in this current flood.
In the 1930s, though, reservoirs were built in certain parts of the Congaree watershed upstream of Columbia, which makes a flood of 364,000 cfs unlikely. However, even in the 75 years since the construction of those reservoirs (see the peak record here), there have been floods that approach the 2015 flood. For example, in 1964 the peak discharge was 142,000 cfs, and in 1977 the peak discharge was 155,000 cfs.
So, if only the data from last 75 years are considered, this flood is the largest in that period, but not four times the historic maximum.
Why do you think people have been calling it a 1000-year flood?
When USGS uses terminology like “1000-year flood,” it means that, statistically speaking, a flood of that magnitude (or greater) has a 1 in 1000 chance in any given year. In terms of probability, the 1000-year flood has a 0.1% chance of happening in any given year. One must keep in mind a 1000-year flood value is a statistical value based on observed data.
Although the USGS streamgage data in South Carolina does not seem to indicate a 1000 year flood, the amount of rainfall that fell over a 2 to 3 day period (greater than 16 to 20 inches in some locations) had, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a statistical probability of occurrence of 0.1% or 1 in 1000 chance. So, rather than someone saying this was a 1000-year flood, it is more accurate to say that “statistically speaking”, the rainfall that fell was a 1000-year rain storm, although it did not result in a 1000-year flood.
How can we have a 1000-year rain that does not result in a 1000-year flood?
It comes down to a number of factors, including the pattern of movement of the rain storm in each particular watershed, the conditions of the soil and plant matter on the ground in the watershed, and the timing of rain storm in one watershed versus other watersheds, among other things. An example would be that ground that is saturated before 1 inch of rain fell would result in more water going into the stream that if the ground was dry and could soak up more of the rain. Also, less water will runoff into streams from 1 inch of rain falling in the summer with the trees full of leaves versus the winter when there are no leaves to intercept the rain. This is all the science of hydrology, which is the study of the movement and distribution of water on the earth. Of course, in South Carolina, many of the watersheds have streams that are regulated by dams.
Is this flood due to climate change?
USGS research has shown no linkage between flooding (either increases or decreases) and the increase in greenhouse gases. Essentially, from USGS long-term streamgage data for sites across the country with no regulation or other changes to the watershed that could influence the streamflow, the data shows no systematic increases in flooding through time.
A much bigger impact on flooding, though, is land use change. Without proper mitigation, urbanization of watersheds increases flooding. Moreover, encroachment into the floodplain by homes and businesses leads to greater economic losses and potential loss of life, with more encroachment leading to greater losses.
Why do the values for the 100-year flood seem to change with every flood?
The amount of water corresponding to a 100-year flood, a 500-year flood, or a 1000-year flood is known as a “flood quantile”. For instance, on a given river, the flood quantile corresponding to the 50-year flood might be 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) or the flood quantile corresponding to the 100-year flood might be 15,000 cfs. The estimates of the flood quantiles (corresponding to various probabilities) are made from using actual data collected at a site in a statistical analysis.
So, for a particular river, USGS would collect data over time; determine the largest flood in each year and then run statistical analysis on that data. Now, the more years of data available, the more accurate the estimates for the various flood quantiles (the floods corresponding to the 50-, 100-, 500-year, etc). For example, if there are 40 years of data, that would yield a better estimate of the 50-year flood than if only 25 years of data were available. Moreover, if only 50 years of data exists, statistical models will do better estimating the 10-year flood quantile than the 100-year flood quantile.
As more years of data become available, the estimates become more refined, which can result in the quantiles changing. An example in the Southeast United States is the Broad River at Carlton, GA. That watershed had a wet period, with larger annual peak floods, from the late 1800’s to 1920, followed by a drier period since that time (at least in terms of flood peaks). The statistical analysis for the entire period (late 1800s to 2014), which includes the wet years prior to 1920, results in an estimate of a 100-year quantile that is 40 % higher than the one using the data from just 1920-2014.
But it seems like the 100-year flood is getting larger through time at a site near me, so you are saying that this is not necessarily from climate or land-use change?
Climate variability (dry cycles to wet cycles) plays a large role. There is a large amount of uncertainty around the flood quantile estimates (the value of discharge corresponding to the 100-year flood), particularly if there isn’t a long record of observed data at a stream location. For example, if there is only 25 years of data and a statistical analysis was done on that data to estimate the 100-year flood, uncertainty around the estimate would be quite large. It can look like flooding at that particular location is getting worse if there are 2 or 3 floods in a short period that exceed that estimate of the 100-year flood. However, if there were 700 years of data, it might show that what had been called a 100-year flood when there was only 25 years of data was really only a 10-year flood.
I would like to dig a little deeper into the meaning of 100-year flood, can you tell me more?
Instead of me doing that here, let me point you to something on the web that I prepared several years ago on this very subject. I titled it “100-Year Flood—It’s All About Chance”. You can see what I have said by going to http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/106/.
Source: http://water.usgs.gov/floods/events/2015/Joaquin/HolmesQA.html
h/t to Marc Morano of Climate Depot
Note: about an hour after publication, the first paragraph was corrected for a typo and to read more clearly on the intended meaning.
Better check your first paragraph, Anthony. Besides the small typo, I don’t think the sentence is what you intended to express.
It is still early Saturday AM in California….
Regardless of the USGS claim, the activist media got their rimshots in during the flood and no one amongst them will feel the need to correct the record. That is what WUWT & Climate Depot etc are for.
BTW has Barbara Boxer quoted the 1000 year Climate Change Flood yet?.
I am still waiting on the 100 year rainfall event. One thing. If there was a flood 1000 years ago (buying into the CAGW twisted notion of statistics) and there was no industrialization; rather, a medieval warming period 1000 years ago, can we not use this non-event to hype non-warming, like the medieval warming period, and thereby prove there is no warming now because there was warming then?
Are you confused? Yes, on this site you are confused but I am appealing the the reasoning of the global warmists and their tortured lens of cause and effect.
If you look at 1000 different regions on Earth, then statistically speaking, one of them should have a 1000 year flood, or a 1000 ARI every year. It’s got nothing to do with the climate 1000 years ago.
Quite possible, provided the events are random so in that case I would draw a distinction between probability and statistics.
“…that quashes widespread media and activst claims that the flood in South Carolina had nothing to do with claime change…”
So the flood was caused by climate change then? I’m pretty sure media and activists are not claiming that the flood had ‘nothing’ to do with climate change. Just the opposite.
Mods, I understand that mistakes happen, but why is it so hard to correct a mistake that was pointed out hours ago? There are also two misspellings in the same sentence of the first paragraph.
[Reply: Fixed now. It’s impossible to read every comment on every thread, and it’s Saturday. Moderating is not the only thing we do. But thanx for pointing it out. ~mod.]
It appears the NNN-Year flood is a useless descriptor for the purpose for the same reason calling Sandy Kofax a 200-year baseball pitcher is nonsense. Incarcerate anyone who uses such terms and prosecute them under RICO laws for inciting fear in people with poor math skills.
FINALLY – someone from USGS talking like an real life honest-to-god scientist. I feared that species had become extinct, perhaps there is hope it may return.
Don’t land use changes affect how much water runs off the land and into the rivers and streams. An example is concreted land and roads near streams and rivers. Am I on the right line of thinking here?
An answer to Jimbo at 12:37
Geological Survey Circular 554
Figure 1. Hypothetical unit hydrographs relating
runoff to rainfall, with definitions of significant parameters.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1968/0554/report.pdf
by Luna B. Leopold
______
Note that the rainfall is usually shown as a bar chart while the flows are shown as a continuous line. I’ve seen “period of rainfall” shown as a continuous line but ti seems less common. Folks use the phrase “storm hydrograph” so a search on that using “images” will work.
Jimbo, that’s why the flood zones are updated every 20 years or so, to account for this. It’s an estimate of future flooding, not a historical review.
Thanks for the replies.
Let me put it another way. Let’s assume for a moment there were NO man-made structures or humans in North or South Carolina – would it have been a 1,000 year or 500 year flood? How would the land have handled the flood waters with no pavements, roads, built-up areas etc?
What gets me is the hint that this [insert years] flood is down to greenhouse gases ‘climate change’. That’s all.
It’s not a perfect or an exact measurement. However, it’s a useful estimate of risk and a valid tool for describing the rarity of an event. When used in it’s proper context for it’s proper purpose (describing the rarity of a certain level of flood for preparation and insurance purposes), then it is good.
For example, a 10 ft flood of the Mississippi could be huge. It could be nothing. I truly don’t know. However, if you describe it as an annual flood level, I know what it is and am willing to mock people whose homes were flooded in it. However, if it is a 50 year flood, then it is surprising but not shocking. Floods occurring outside the 500 year floodplain are shocking.
Just because something is misused does not mean it’s invalid.
How would you like to make your eyes bleed—–http://uli.org/ . I’m going to a meeting were a VP of Sustainability is going to speak. Instead of making a complete fool of myself can anybody offer some poignant questions if there is a question & answer period?
Good luck and have fun. Here’s a link to Delingpole’s snipets on the term. Enjoy the read. The quickest way to throw a sustainabiliatas a curve is to tie them into the bastardization of the word courtesy of the UN.
https://wolfhillblog.wordpress.com/tag/james-delingpole/
When your done, you’ll probably not get invited to the tour of the evil coal fired power plant.
I agree with cross border. “Anything’ instead of ‘nothing’ would do it.
The article’s heading paragraph should be corrected thus:
“USGS publishes new information that quashes widespread media and activst claims that the flood in South Carolina had
nothingsomething to do with claimeate change,”Shout from the rooftops
USGS research has shown no linkage between flooding (either increases or decreases) and the increase in greenhouse gases.
Yes, but the USGS consists of geoscientists – what would they know? They aren’t climate scientists!
Looks like Dr. Holmes is a professional and knows his stuff. Sure hope he doesn’t get fired for not singing the Obama party line!
BTW I use the USGS stream gauge data all the time. It’ a great site with lots of useful features.
USGS, under the Dept of Interior, currently has career USGS acting Director and Asst Directors, limiting direct political control over its message. So Dr. Holmes will likely get a nastygram from the Obama political appointees that run the Department of the Interior. Sally Jewell, a banker turned REI CEO, runs the Department, with a “staph infection” of Obambots around her, will have emails from WH staffers now telling her to get USGS “on message.”
Thanks for that info Joel…even though it offends me that this is the case.
Seriously…it hurts my feelings!
Maybe a “staff infection?”
Sad, every agency has become infected, even the military, intelligence, IRS, and secret service thanks in part to a complicit media.
“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.”
Noam Chomsky
Indeed, Dr Holmes is a public servant and if I understand the US system public service system appropriately, he has recourse. Sally Jewel is not a public servant and is not held to the same standard as Mr Holmes. However, it’s illegal for her to intimidate him into lying.
Knute,
The political hacks running Obama’s agencies merely have to keep inconvenient voices and views silent with warnings not to talk about their work or views that contradict the “Message.”
As for “staph” or “staff”, I meant used the correct word for my meaning… maybe I should have capitalized it and italicized it, as in Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection which can cause skin boils. That is a metaphor that captures Obamabot hacks at work.
Thanks for posting this, Mr. Watts.
It’s gratifying to see USGS debunk some of the misinformation regarding the SC floods. Most people don’t understand that flood terms such as 50-year, 100-year, 1000-year are based on statistical applications to observed data. As also explained, there’s a difference between a 100(0)-year rain and a 100(0)-year flood.
As a professional land surveyor, it’s challenging enough to determine actual elevations without trying to explain the hydrology and statistics, for which I lack the education and experience.
So just what period are NOAA using to determine the probability of a 1000y event and what is the uncertainty on that probability figure?
Clearly this is based on extrapolating an assumed statistical model for the probability distribution of storm intensity WAY out into the tail of the assumed distribution fn. where no data exists, since they don’t have 1000 , 500, or even 200 years of storm data.
Kudos to Dr. Robert Holmes for an objective scientific approach and getting as near as he politely could to saying where we should look for the BS merchants on this.
Very well stated Mike!
You are looking at this wrong. The floodplain is a measurement of risk, not of history. As they describe in the article, the 100 years and 500 year floods are based on the most recent data available as wet periods and dry periods change the chance incredibly.
Look at the 100 year floodplain as “we estimate that there is a 1% chance that this region will flood in a year”, and it makes a lot more sense.
How can it not be history? If you look at the flood plain maps, all the 10-year events should fall (mostly) within the 10-year flood boundary, assuming you have some reasonable (say 50-100 years) history. The 50-year events may be more nebulous (assuming you have any) and the 100, 500, and 1,000 year boundaries are going to be statistical guesses. There is no way the floodplain can be a measurement of risk without also being a reflection of history.
DJ, what I was attempting to say is that it is a short term prediction that is based on multiple things. The most important thing to note is that during wet periods, the flood plain is raised, and during dry periods, it is dropped. It also attempts to adjust for land use changes. After a series of wet years and construction projects, the top of the 100 year floodplain may not have flooded in 300 years, but the situation has made it more likely for it to flood.
It is an estimate of future patterns that is partially based on history. It is not and should not be used as a measurement of history in and of itself.
Please note that the good Doctor is talking about TWO event/probabilities; one is a 1,000-year RAIN and the other is a 100-year FLOOD. Just because you get a 1,000-year rain doesn’t mean you’ll get a 1,000-year flood
I would not mind betting that the 0.1% ( 1000y ) figure is the ‘may be as much as limit of a fairly large uncertainty range on the fitted probability. As usual they hide the uncertainly under the carpet and state it like solid fact. You’d thin they have watershed data going back 2000y ! Maybe they have a tree-ring proxy for that too. 😉
Yeah, clear over in Russia.
More Climate Porn.
The offspring of Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf… doing acid. The average reader / viewer is growing immune to the hyperbolic drumbeat as the Paris COP 21 approaches.
Not holding my breath for a “mea culpa”(let alone a retraction) by USAToday.
How about that Weather Channel? They are supposed to be professionals, and this is their only business.
somebody with some time may want to dig out the NOAA data for SC or Colombia, or wherever the hype-centre [sic] of this event is and do a histrogram plot of the number of events in in each bracket of rainfall.
That would be a very interesting read. I wonder what area the rainfall is averaged over to generate their metric? Clearly, if the rainfall took place over an area of say one square mile and was averaged over the entire state, it wouldn’t be impressive at all. Likewise, I doubt that measurements are being taken at the per acre level either.
I think it is more likely a 100 year encroachment into the floodplain by homes and businesses.
Still not sure how a 1 in 1000 chance in any given year of a certain level of flooding is proof of anything other than there is a 1 in 1000 chance in any given year of a certain level of flooding.
Right, and heavy rain that stays in one place for several days straight does not happen every day…but it does happen.
This is a good article on how the use of statistics has been a disaster in the behavioral sciences. But as the article mentions this same misuse and abuse of statistical methods has infected many other areas of science.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/making-it-all_1042807.html
Two individual streamgauges appeared to show in the region of 500 year events.
But the majority did not.
The question and the analysis should ultimately be aimed at asking whether the event as a whole was unprecedented in magnitude or scale, or that it should under normal conditions be exceedingly rare.
By even mentioning individual streamgauges we are falling into the trap of increasing the number of “events”.
If I tell you that I threw a dice and obtained 4 consecutive 6’s, then this is only notable if I sampled only this one event. It is then notable and may perhaps lead us to suggest that the dice may be loaded.
If you then discover that I spent all week throwing the dice, and waiting for a remarkable occurence then the event is now unremarkable.
In the modern search for “climate extremes” we risk falling for the same simple flaw in thinking.
We are looking into a chaotic system at finer and finer detail, and thus continually raising the number of events which may appear to be suspect, weird, unprecedented, “1000 year”, or whatever.
But, when you look deeper into the Mandelbrot, you see more Mandelbrot.
It’s turtles all the way down.
Sampling at finer detail will APPEAR to present us with MORE extremes.
But that is an artifact of the act of looking harder and at more stuff.
Here I am in Somerset in the UK, hearing about an individual stream guage in Carolina.
This is definitely due to a phenomenon called “extreme weather”, or perhaps “extreme weather awareness”.
But only inasmuch as “extreme weather” is a modern social phenomenon which can lead a person at a computer in Somerset to fixate his attention on an individual stream guage in Carolina.
Meanwhile, graphs of rainfall averages, almost invariably show no distinct or concerning trends.
If the rain in “extreme events” is falling heavier, then how does the rain at all other normal times know that it needs to fall proportionally less heavily, in order to compensate for the heavy downpour?
This makes no sense.
I am currently inclined to conclude that the whole thing is a delusion.
Sort of liking watching a Lava Lamp for a few weeks and getting excited what the blobs sometimes get bigger or smaller than average.
The atmosphere is a very complicated Lava Lamp, in a manner of speaking. Certain time lapse videos of Earth imagery are strikingly similar in appearance.
Yeah, and, on top of this, like taking a copy of the Guinness Book of Records and then making the intriguing observation that the extreme records listed seem to be increase in frequency towards the date of publication.
(OMG – a TREND, in the historical record, of records. Definitely PROOF of something. So we must find the physical CAUSE).
Then deciding that this worrying phenomenon should be investigated systematically by spending more time and money on documenting record breaking things and events.
Houston, we have a problem… 🙂
I used the mischaracterization of the SC flood along with the graphic visual images (see my comment on previous post) as an illustration of all these false narratives that all go to increasing public power to redesign the economy and plan society. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/disguising-the-rise-of-the-oligarchs-via-competencies-new-values-a-thinking-curriculum-and-other-false-narratives/
The post includes links to iclei reports where they are bragging about how most of the UN’s Vision 2020 agenda our governments have signed us on to will have to be carried out by local governments. After all they have the most control over people, places, and especially students. The UN has even developed the term ‘localization’ to describe the local administration of its global agenda.
” …in South Carolina, many of the watersheds have streams that are regulated by dams.” To what extent do the existence of these dams influence the readings on the stream gages?
USGS “Dams and Rivers” is a start.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=811
If I’m not mistaken, a dam can slow down the volume of water going down stream. Unless the reservoir fills up and overflows, the surge from upstream rainfall is buffered and the dam can provide a more controlled release.
Up to 100% influence.
If the Corps of Eng shuts the “spillway” gates off the stream flow will decrease, … except in rare events.
I live about 2+ miles downstream from a Flood Control Dam and my backyard borders on the outflow river channel. There was an extreme rain event in 1985 and the Corps shut the outflow of the Dam off ….. but there was so much rainwater flowing into the river channel via tributaries downstream from me that the river behind my house was actually flowing upstream toward the Dam.
I live about 2+ miles downstream from a Flood Control Dam and my backyard borders on the outflow river channel. There was an extreme rain event in 1985 and the Corps shut the outflow of the Dam off ….. but there was so much rainwater flowing into the river channel via tributaries downstream from me that the river behind my house was actually flowing upstream toward the Dam.
Most flooding events are not caused by excessive rainfall … but because of the restricted “flow capacity” of the river channel. When rainfall amounts exceed the flow capacity then flooding results.
OOPS, …. double paragraph there above. My bad.
The Corps of Engineers only controls the Savannah River basin in SC.
A few years ago Brisbane (in Oz) suffered from a dam release during a high rainfall event that caused severe damage. Of course, climate change was the first culprit until an investigation uncovered that the dam was supposed to be there for flood containment but they had allowed it to fill and there was insufficient room to hold back the water so they had to release it.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the damage was to buildings (residential and industrial) that were built on the flood plain next to the river.
US Geological Survey publishes National Streamflow Statistics (NSS) for estimation of n-year flood flows on watersheds without stream gages. The link:
http://water.usgs.gov/software/NSS/
Note that NSS replaces the old National Flood Frequency (NFF) program.
For the inquisitive, Bulletin 17B explains the statistics behind much of this. Link here:
http://water.usgs.gov/osw/bulletin17b/bulletin_17B.html
FEMA applies the theory to its statement that there is roughly a one-in-four chance of a “100-year” flood hitting a home during a 30-year mortgage.
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/floodplain/nfip_sg_unit_3.pdf
“The term “100-year flood” is often misconstrued. Commonly, people interpret the 100-year flood definition to mean “once every 100 years.” This is wrong. You could experience a 100-year flood two times in the same year, two years in a row, or four times over the course of 100 years. You could also not experience a 100-year flood over the course of 200 or more years.”
We see frequent flooding at the Mississippi and Illinois confluence and the buildings in the towns along the rivers have been repeatedly inundated since pioneer days, yet folks stay, and build higher stilts or watertight concrete vaults under their houses. A friend who lives in the nearby tourist haven town of Grafton IL says the town survives by “ignorant tenacity”.
By the way, many back roads here have fords (low water crossings) and a gully-washer can deposit a 100 ft oak tree across the road in little or no time. Makes emergency services difficult
Two points that I don’t see in the analysis.
First, there is the statistical fallacy of assuming a normal distribution, or log-normal or exponential distribution for rain fall amounts over time. These nice mathematically clean distribution definitions serve as a first approximation, but they are not “The Truth”. As explored in “The Black Swan”, Fat Tailed Distributions are common in reality and thus it appears that any noteworthy event has a much larger probability in a fat tail distribution than the standard approximating distribution would indicate. The failure is in the choice of models to describe uncommon events.
Second, let us assume that the SC floods really were a 1000 year event — for SC. South Carolina is about 32,000 mi^2. The lower 48 states is almost 100 times bigger (2.96 E+6 mi^2). Statistically then, we should expect a 1000-year flood somewhere in the lower 48 states about every 10 years.
Maybe we should have insurance companies tell us about the frequency of weather events. But then again, that’s how they make a profit.
“Is this flood due to climate change?
USGS research has shown no linkage between flooding (either increases or decreases) and the increase in greenhouse gases. Essentially, from USGS long-term streamgage data for sites across the country with no regulation or other changes to the watershed that could influence the streamflow, the data shows no systematic increases in flooding through time.”
Let me get this straight. AGW (aka : CO2) has no effect on the hydro-logical cycle (thus no increase or decrease in atmospheric water vapor) nor does it have any effect on the convection cycle. And USGS admits this?
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t that a base premise of CAGW? So they admit its a lie in a round about way… hmmmmmm
I can hear alarmist heads exploding from where I live…
Funny how they took empirical evidence, reported it truthfully, and it disproves their pet theroy in one fail swoop… Got to love it!
Here is the video:
The difference: USGS is made of engineers and surveyors. They have first hand experience with the information, and they are responsible to their data and their data alone. Plus, there is strong protection from political influence as it is not a plum job and their decisions are important to the insurance industry, giving them strong independence requirements.
However, don’t read too much into it. It is only what they said, no more. There have been no changes in flooding due to climate change.
The year was 1972. The concern was global COOLING. Hurricane Agnes dropped up to 20 inches of rain in Pennsylvania and we experienced extreme flooding along the Susquehanna.
O/T for this thread, but right on for earlier:
WUWT referenced as news and data source (temp record) in Cruz vs Sierra –
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/09/the-sierra-club-responded-to-getting-schooled-by-ted-cruz-on-global-warming-and-theyre-still-wrong/
In this ropey business one full tied the knot (said 1000 year flood), it may take seven wise man to undo the damage done.
Is there any justification for assuming the extreme tails of a precipitation event are well described by a normal distribution (or a known distribution for that matter)? If not, describing a flood as 1 in a 1000 based on 100 years or less of data is nonsense…
It is unlikely that these things live in a L2 universe. By that I mean that the second order sample statistics will not converge but will rather diverge the more data you measure. Always remember Hurst studied the flooding of the Nile and simulated it with a deck of cards.
Dr.Holmes sounds just like most of the USGS hydrologists that I worked with for over 30 years.
A decent person trying to find the truth, and trying to explain it to others in the clearest manner in which he can.
Score one for the good guys!
+10
I could not resist the mental image of your cartoonist friend jotting a picture of a group of activist protesters shouting ‘denier’ at a USGS streamgage robot and calling for the manufacturing company to be brought up on RICO charges.
What none of the media has taken into consideration, was that we had almost two solid weeks of rain across the state prior to the inflows from the hurricane. Our soil was already close to saturation with localized flooding already occurring.